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Alison Johnstone MSP

Lothian

Health & Sport, Social Security, Children & Young People

Alison Johnstone has represented Lothian region since 2011. She is a member of Holyrood's Health and Social Security committees. Alison has previously been a member of the Economy, Scotland Bill and Devolution committees. She was an Edinburgh city councillor between 2007 and 2012. Alison is from Edinburgh and lives in the south of the city with her husband and young daughter. A former East of Scotland 800 metres and 1500 metres title holder, Alison still runs for fitness and campaigns for access to green spaces to make healthy lifestyles easy for all. In the last session of Parliament she led the Fans First campaign to win football fans the right to buy their clubs, she led the fight against fracking by proposing a ban in 2014, and persuaded ministers to make energy efficient housing a national infrastructure priority.

This Boxing Day, as fox hunts meet around the UK including in Scotland, Scottish Green MSP Alison Johnstone has pledged to publish a consultation on plans to introduce an effective fox hunting ban and better protect Scotland’s wild mammals.

Boxing Day hunts include the Berwickshire hunt, which meets in Greenlaw - events described as an “annual family ritual” by the Countryside Alliance but which Ms Johnstone says are cruel.

In November Alison observed a hunt in the Borders with investigators from the League Against Cruel Sports.

We already know that Universal Credit is leaving families with just pennies a week.

Families trapped in unsuitable temporary accommodation for months on end because their income no longer covers their rent; disabled people who can no longer get to work, because reforms to disability benefits means they no longer can access a motability vehicle.

Scottish Ministers are being urged by the Scottish Greens to “fast-track action” on social care staffing, as new figures show a further rise in patients stuck in hospital - the vast majority of them waiting for social care.

In September this year, 45,470 days were spent in hospital by people whose discharge was delayed, up from 43,913 days in August and up from 42,110 days in September last year.

The Scottish Greens today urged by the UK and Scottish Governments to act on “appalling” figures showing a big increase in people applying for crisis grants to prevent them from going hungry or having nowhere to sleep.

I previously wrote in the Evening News (Food for thought and a little thought for food) in support of calls from the Scottish Food Coalition for a right to food to be enshrined in Scots Law, to address our dependency on foodbanks to provide for people in our wealthy, food-producing nation.

The Raptor Persecution UK blog has revealed that a peregrine falcon was found dead in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh earlier this year.

I am deeply saddened that yet another bird of prey has been illegally killed in the Pentland hills, just a few miles from the city of Edinburgh. Scotland’s birds of prey are supposedly protected, yet persecution is rife and rarely met with justice.